Pages

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

SPOILERS: Batman and Robin Eternal #10

Azreal has a really bad haircut. That's the one thing you should take away from this issue.

The Spoilers:

So the three on one fight between Red Hood/Red Robin/Bane and Azrael doesn't go particularly well, especially when Azrael touches Bane which causes Mr. Venom to drink the koolaid and get lost in Arzrael's holiness or whatever. So Tim and Jason slip away, looking for what they came to find, info on Mother and now her possible connection to the Order.

Tim finds just that in the church's main server. Azrael is Jean-Paul Valley, no records, he just sort of appeared in the Church after some business with shell cooperations in Prague, meaning they were dealing with Mother at some point. Jason cross-references the name, and sure enough, JPV is on Mother's list.

Back in Prague, Bruce returns from his encounter with Mother to find that Dick had gone out on his own and taken action into his own hands, getting injured in the process... Bruce isn't in a good mood and sees it as insubordination, leading to an argument with Dick. Eventually, it brings him back to Mother saying he's ready to listen.

Back in the present, JPV catches up with Tim and Jason. Tim's all "your life is a lie, these miracles are really technology blah blah blah." JPV is all "I know bro, technology is of man and man is holy, thus MIRACLES" and makes Tim trip balls. Jason manages to tag JPV and get Tim away from him as he attempts to make an escape. Tim is pretty far gone blabbering to himself about having failed... failed Bruce.

Back to Dick and Harper, they're doing some digging and find the identity of the Orphan, leading them to a single address... the only one listed under David Cain's name (Seriously, they sort of just breeze over it) and a new villain, who seems to be familiar with mother's children, The Sculptor, greets her new guests.

END.

The Opinion:

Granted, after a couple of issues and some key dialogue, it wasn't hard to figure out that The Orphan was Cassandra's father, but they seriously pay that shit no mind in this issue. Seriously. No twist, no reveal, no nothing... he doesn't even actually appear in this issue. It's just an offhand mention in this panel.

At least they made his name bold? I don't know.

It was a good issue. Curious to see what Tim saw. JPV is pretty cool and you can already see some cracks forming in his programing from the church, so again, I'll say that I'm real curious to see how he is used after this series is over... That fucking haircut though, it's got to go.

5 comments
:

I HATED this issue. The fight at the cathedral seemed so ho-hum, paint-by-numbers and felt like busywork while Dick and Harper were doing the real uncovering. Bane was taken out of the equation far too soon (why bring him in at all?), and while Tim finally got to stand up, it was just kind of bland. Then there was that EMBARRASSING fit Dick threw in the flashback. Ugh.

This was some high quality 1990's era Batman Family right here until the end. The comradely between the Robins was spot on and still distinct for the characters, Azrael had an excellent entrance and fleshing out for the character, and my only complaint is that it still feels like Harper's being written in a very derivative fashion.